I was pleased to watch High Sierra announcement during WWDC by Craig Federighi. Technology and Refinements was two things given most attention. As software engineer this words is music to my ears. I felt excitement. This is it, this is Mountain Lion moment once again!

All of my work is done on the Mac, I use it every day. macOS has great foundation, unlimited and unrestricted potential. Combined with years of iterative improvements and innovation, we get capable, reliable OS.

It seams like Craig and Phil continue to do excellent job. People will benefit if macOS continue to improve. I am happy that’s there’s wise executives and engineers at Apple who care about Mac and its software. Many people who create amazing things and continue to rely on macOS as their main working horse will benefit from refinements and performance improvements.

I heard strange pop noise when I took my watch from its charging dock. Then reboot cycle began and I left them on the desk for a night. On next morning, thought of software issue, decided to deal with it later, I put the watch on and couldn’t get touch screen to respond. I could unlock the watch with iPhone. Then on my commute to work reboot cycle began again. I was able to touch in with Apple Pay and I couldn’t touch out with “Card Unavailable” message. I got into the office and while lifting left arm to press door button I heard another short rattling sound coming from my wrist. I shook my wrist, and Apple Watch screen opened like a little door, rattling on thin wires strip. Came back to my desk and feeling upset I put the watch away, gently wrapped it to apply pressure from top and bottom with paper tissues and duck tape, then put them in black spring loaded glasses case to apply even more pressure and security. I thought of it as little coffin and felt sad.

Been busy with work, one or two weeks later, I went online to research the issue. This thread on Apple forum was most popular and gave me little hope it was factory issue. We wouldn’t be able to afford $200 repair cost. I bought them more than 2 years ago and was mostly happy with it, planned to use Apple Watch for another 2.

Next day I had scheduled call and friendly person suggested that the reason is battery which is expanded after large amount of charging cycles. He suggested to bring watch for repair or send him a picture. I regret not taking a picture when screen went loose.

With little hope I went to Apple Store Kingston, there I explained my problem. Apple Store employee couldn’t pick up screen with his nails and screen started to recognise touch input again. Been tightly sealed for a week, it could reverse the damage. It is not safe to use device with damaged battery. Another reason keeping device in a case was fear of fire or even explosion.

I signed estimated £165.83 repair cost, with single part which is entire watch body without band. I was told I don’t need to pay anything right now. He also told me they had replacement program but only for the back of the watch coming loose.

4 working days later I received “Your product is ready for pickup” letter. My hope grew stronger still I couldn’t know what to expect, I could get a bill or my broken watch back but I got small cardboard box, had to sign another waver with the same £165.83 price and £0 due amount. I was asked do I want to open the box right there or home, I choose latter, oh boy what a surprise I got.

To my delight, Apple sent Apple Watch Series 1, 2016 model with updated dual core CPU straight from China. It was mentioned in email but I wanted to check SN and engraving to be sure. Excelent customer service on every level.

10.3 Update.

I need to mention, the main issue is now resolved. People which couldn't see without maximum brightness not suffering any more. From what I found, problem caused by energy saving behaviour and it's also exist in 10.3, however maximum brightness cap is removed.

So now with IOS 10.3 when the battery drops to below 50% the screen dims and the brightness slider drops but u can move it back to full.

10.2.1 Problem.

With iOS 10.2.1 update Apple engineers fixed lots of security problems. I was impressed with the list of fixes and the fact that Apple credited some people and organisations which helped to discover the problems.

I went to Twitter to find out how update is doing, as I sometimes do, and found one complaint from Tim Carr about brightness issues on his iPhone 6. First I was sceptical because I read release notes prior and I couldn't make a connection between patching core iOS security and breaking brightness.

Turns out there's real bug which locks maximum iPhone 6 and 6s[^2] brightness at certain battery levels. Tim Carr is registered blind and having maximum screen brightness at all time is very important for him and many other users with visual disabilities. Quick search brought this iMore forum thread which proves that's it's not isolated problem.

Two iPhone 6 phones. Left is without latest update. Right is with latest update. Both set to full brightness. Image from Tim Carr's tweet.

We tried to troubleshoot it and came to a conclusion that's issue was in iOS not his iPhone. I hoped that Apple Support could help and encouraged Tim to talk to them. That's didn't help at all. Tim tried to reach them in many ways — through Twitter and phone calls and couldn't get any solution. In his desperation he even tweeted to Tim Cook:[^1]

@tim_cook I'm registered blind. Now I cannot use my phone as soon as the battery hits 70% because the screen is so dim. I've logged a call..

It would be much better if Apple could admit their fault and inform their support team. I bet some iPhone 6 owners talking to Apple Support right now and getting standard responses to restore their devices. Apple Support at this moment has no idea about the problem and taking every enquiry through the standard path when it could be just a single reply: *Thank you, we working on a fix, I'm meanwhile please try to turn Zoom on and off.*

Instead they making it worse:

@AppleSupport as a note, a restore doesn't solve everything. Plus asking a visually impaired or blind person to restore their phone

Michael E. Cohen from TidBITS wrote amazing post revealing details about current iBooks state. Even found “irritating” Truncated Serif bug I never noticed before. Michael also like me noticed that iBooks sync ignores books added not from the iBooks Store.

His conclusion:

iBooks is not quite as unreliable and confusing as it was when I wrote about it last year, but neither has it improved nearly as much as loyal iBooks users deserve. Moreover, what little support documentation Apple provides is sketchy and inaccurate, leaving the impression that even the support and documentation departments within Apple are ignoring iBooks.

I wrote about iBooks stagnation 2 weeks ago, glad I’m not the only one concerned about its future.

There’s many readers on the App Store but iBooks was always my favourite. It was one of the first applications developed by Apple for iPad. It is the app which convinced me to purchase my first iPad 7 years ago, primarily for reading books and PDF documents.

There’s many things to admire about iBooks:

Beautiful shelf view with covers, colourful and crisp.

Stunning page turning animation.

Auto-Night Theme.

Bookmarks and Notes sync.

Built-in iBooks Store.

Beautiful typography and tasteful layout.

Obviously nothing is perfect and there’s several aspects of iBooks which needs to be improved.

Backups!

Other issue is lack of Activity Sheet. I prefer to keep an extra backup on top of iCloud for all my books. It is easier to import book but it is impossible to export it. Currently to backup files from iBooks Mac is necessary.

Sync was always a mystery for me. Generally it is very robust and fast. There’s very interesting aspects of it. For example, I can make a note then remove book from all devices and then add it one year laters and my note will be there waiting for me. Notes and Bookmarks sync is great and works everywhere. However, file sync only works for purchased books and PDF. And this leads me to DRM (digital rights management).

Because Mac is required to create a backup file for books purchased from iBooks Store, I don’t recommend to anyone to buy from iBooks Store if they don’t have access to Mac.

Problem of DRM.

Everything purchased from iBooks is protected by publishers which means I’m as copy owner don’t have control. Not every online book store is like this. You can get DRM free books from Humble Bundle, Oreilly and Image Comics which I wrote about. I applaud to their initiative. I don’t want my library to be forever locked inside of iBooks. It is important to have freedom to use any reader you like in case Apple goes out of books business or someone makes better reading app. As iPad user I appreciate that I can add any DRM free book into iBooks and read it there. I don’t appreciate the fact that non iBooks books not syncing (luckily reading position, notes and bookmarks do), especially when I can sync PDF files easily.

Moving Region.

One other thing I hate about DRM is region locking. For instance, if I purchase book from UK Store and than move to United States Store it is my responsibility to have an extra copy somewhere because Apple would not allow to re-download it again from US Store.1 That’s why I always have an external folder in iCloud Drive with my library.

I noticed very curious thing when adding books I purchased from US Store into iBooks where I logged in with UK account. Books can be added very easy and Apple does not prevent me to read them. Apple will even sync this books across all my devices. However when I “remove the download”, iBooks wouldn’t allow me to download it again.

General Stability.

Sometimes I get error message. I don’t remember details but it is obvious that ePub format needs to be improved, especially, error handling. There’s nothing worse than get your book corrupted when you don’t have an internet connection.

Update on Publishing.

Just about an hour ago Dimsumthinking wrote excellent blog post about iBooks Author and how Apple abandoned its development. I am mostly agree2 with the post and I hope Apple will continue investing into iBooks Author especially knowing how much worse Amazon tools are. This is missed opportunity for Apple to capture more creative publishers.

Dimsumthinking mentioned that he is appreciating ability to email his customers who acquired book through Gum Road. I do understand benefits but as consumer I also value the fact that iBooks Store doesn’t disclose my email address. ↩

Finding myself working from iPad more and more, including this blog, I wanted to share few tips on typing.

At first I would always connect my Applet Wireless Keyboard before working on long text however recently I found myself using on screen keyboard more. There’s many advantages when using software keyboard:

I can start immediately.

I can work on any surface at any place.

Quick Type suggestions easier to reach.

When I need to be quiet, I can disable sound.

When sound is on it is superior experience to mechanical sound because different keys produce different sound.

Typing on glass is entirely different experience. However I don’t think it is lesser experience, moreover I think MacBook keyboard will be replaced with touch screen eventually. I am finding typing on glass easier and easier. You don’t need to press on keys and I like it. The same reason I prefer keyboards with less travel. I think it’s a direction we going to. It just a matter of practice and you can be as much productive as with hardware keyboard.

There’s disadvantages also - less screen space which we can’t do anything about and text selection problem. Classic iOS magnifier glass selection is accessible but not fast enough. New 3D Touch gesture is amazing on iPhone but doesn’t work on iPad. iOS 10 introduced trackpad mode for iPad but I always couldn’t understand how to select text with it. Here’s some things I’ve learned from iOS 10

Pan with 2 fingers to move a cursor. That’s easy to do, reliable1 and faster than using magnifying glass.

2 fingers tap anywhere on the keyboard surface to select a word.

2 fingers double tap to select entire sentence.

When text is selected, try to pan with 2 fingers to any direction to change selection.

The last 3 tips is amazing and makes typing on iPad much more enjoyable. They were not obvious for me.

You also can double tap on the text to select a word. It’s useful when keyboard is not present.

I think something changed in the latest iOS update and my problem when I would select text accidentally while moving cursor with 2 fingers is fixed. It just doesn’t happen any more. This is great improvement. ↩

With iOS 10.3 beta Apple introduced new ask for a review tool for developers. Currently it works as modal alert. Supertop’s Oisin Prendiville made an interesting post where he shows an alternative notification style design. This post is a good work. I don’t agree with it, as developer, I want alert, not notification.

Like John wrote, I am sure when Apple designers read this post they rolled their eyes, of course they had this mockups and decided to go with alert instead. Not because it’s the first idea they had, not because they didn’t consider other options but because it’s the best choice in this context.

Modal alert makes this as explicit request its appearance rare and important for developer. It makes it meaningful for user too. There’s a reason why majority of custom solutions use modal alerts instead of banners. Notification request going to be neglected. If you want to review, it is easier and faster to work your way through alert. Notification adds extra tap and it requires user to act immediately or come back to it later when the right momentum is lost.

I keep working on Altershot, my personal product which I created when I had a need to publish iOS screenshot from my iPad and I wanted it too look professional. At that time I used a Mac app to do it, the app changed screenshot Status Bar to remove everything except full cell signal, full Wi-Fi signal, fixed “9:41 AM” time and full battery. The kind of Status Bar which allows viewer to focus on your app content. You can remove Status Bar completely but than you not presenting the app as it is. Viewer might think the app hides it which is a usability concern.

Here’s how Apple presents iOS 10 on their US website. If you change its region, format of the time on screenshots also changes. For example, some countries have “9.41” instead of “9:41 AM”. The same true for watchOS screenshots.1 The latest Altershot update is released today and it allows editing watchOS screenshots.

With iOS 8 Apple introduced Photos Extensions but not many people know about it. iOS 10 includes Apple’s own Extension called Markup, I hope this will make it more discoverable. Latest Altershot update has Photos Extension.